Congressional Judgment: Built to Lapse?

President Barack Obama spoke this week in the State of the Union message about creating “an economy built to last.” Who could argue with this admirable goal? It’s one all Americans should be able to get behind. But unfortunately, there’s a major obstacle to making progress toward it: the judgment capacity of the US Congress.

The two of us have been thinking a lot in the past year about how some organizations manage to be decisive—and wise—consistently over time. Our book, Judgment Calls: Twelve Stories of Big Decisions and the Teams that Got Them Right, comes out in March. Perhaps needless to say, none of those twelve stories features the US Congress as a hero of organizational judgment. In fact, it’s got to be one of the worst decision-making bodies on earth right now.

Consider the evidence: several weeks spent debating whether to pay our bills or not; “kicking the can down the road” for a couple of months on the payroll tax reduction issue; spending lots of energy on silly things (like HR 1022—“The Buffalo Soldiers in the National Parks Study Act”). And how about 23 short-term extensions of funding for the FAA since 2007—the latest one, passed yesterday, funding it for all of 3 weeks!

Dysfunction on this level is an inconvenient truth for us, given the advice we give organizations. We urge enterprises not to rely on the wisdom of a lone “great man” chief executive, but rather to create decision-making processes that incorporate data, diverse perspectives, and due deliberation. These would seem to the hallmarks of Federal legislation.

The question, then, is why these aren’t enough to make Congress work. What’s wrong with its decision-making processes?

Well, perhaps a blog post does not afford the room to answer that question. But here at least are six things—chosen because they might prove instructive to other organizations—that are impairing the lawmakers’ judgment.

Party-based factions: One of the findings from decision-making research is that, while debate is conducive to good outcomes, hardened factions definitely are not. And Congress, of course, has factions in spades. Thus, as Congress becomes more factionalized along party lines (with fewer and fewer moderates willing to cross the party aisle), it becomes less effective at making decisions.

Selfish money motives. Total spending on congressional races will likely top $2 billion this year, a new record. And the new SuperPACs are likely to distort decision-making in Congress as they are distorting the campaigns for the Republican presidential nominee.

Poor processes. The Congress has engineered itself a set of incredibly poor processes for decision-making. The Senate is particularly guilty here; a simple majority of votes in that body can accomplish almost nothing. A dizzying array of holds, pocket vetoes, and delaying tactics complete the picture.

Lack of accountability. US citizens disapprove of Congressional job performance by over 80% in most polls, but gerrymandering of electoral districts has made most senators and representatives relatively invulnerable to cross-party challenges. Over 90% of Congress’s members were reelected in 2010.

Unclear roles and responsibilities. Despite a couple of hundred years to get it right, there still isn’t agreement on which powers are held by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in the U.S. Witness the most recent hubbub about whether Richard Cordray’s recess (sort of) appointment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was constitutional or not.

Little inspiration to change. Just as Congress has become more factionalized, so has the rest of the country. One might argue that Congress’s dysfunctionality is mirroring—or at least responding to–that of the rest of the citizenry. Fewer and fewer people seem to want to listen to the other side and cooperate with them to help the country move forward.

It’s a daunting list. We can only hope the same factors don’t threaten your own organization’s judgment. The only good news here is that there seems to be consensus that there is a problem: Almost everyone—even those in Congress—agrees the institution is broken.

So here’s an idea: why not convene a “blue-ribbon commission” focused on the two houses’ decision-making capabilities and how to improve them? And since it’s probably too much to expect that Congress itself would decide on passing the required changes, why not make the commission’s recommendations binding? That’s the only way that Congress was able to raise the debt ceiling. It may be the only way to raise the ceiling on its organizational judgment.